Origin of birds confirmed by exceptional new dinosaur fossils

Chinese scientists today reveal the discovery of five remarkable new feathered dinosaur fossils which are significantly older than any previously reported. The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird, at last providing hard evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Talking from the conference in Bristol, Dr Xu Xing, lead scientist on the report published online in Nature today, said: “These exceptional fossils provide us with evidence that has been missing until now. Now it all fits neatly into place and we have tied up some of the loose ends”.

Professor Michael Benton, from the University of Bristol and one of the world’s leading experts on dinosaurs, commented: “This is one of the most exciting fossil discoveries in recent years. It’s like finding a missing piece of the jigsaw – suddenly the picture looks much more complete”.

Previous discoveries of dinosaur fossils with exquisitely preserved remains of feathers were undoubtedly some of the most important fossil finds ever made. At the time, many paleontologists considered this to be the Holy Grail that demonstrated once and for all that birds are highly derived dinosaurs.

However, the oldest undisputed bird, Archaeopteryx, is older than the feathered dinosaurs previously found. Therefore, critics claimed, feathered dinosaurs could not have been ancestral to birds.

The new fossils are from two separate areas, named the Tiaojishan and Daohugou formations. Comparison of the Tiaojishan and Daohugou fossils suggests that they probably all belong to the same fauna. The isotopic dates range from 168 to 151 million years old for the Tiaojishan and 164 to 158 million years for the Daohugou Formation. Archaeopteryx lived 150–145 million years ago, so was significantly younger than these new dinosaurs.

One of the dinosaurs, named Anchiornis huxleyi has extensive plumage and profusely feathered feet. It provides important new information on the origins of birds and the evolution of feathers.

“This fossil provides confirmation that the bird-dinosaur hypothesis is correct and supports the idea that birds descended from theropod dinosaurs, the group of predatory dinosaurs that include Allosaurus and Velociraptor”, said Xu.

The problem is that we are not talking about a model. We aren’t “changing the model to fit the theory”.

We guessed at a progression of creatures that we could at least argue were steps UP on the “evolutionary ladder”, using the theory of evolution to explain the mutations, darwin to explain selection, and “common sense” to explain why a bird would be preferable to a dinasaur.

So when we find a new fossil that puts everything out of order, and we move around the species, we aren’t changing a “model”, we are just changing our story.

It’s like you are building a jigsaw puzzle, and you take some piece and stick it in the middle of the board, and you take pains to explain how the piece is scientifically located; then you put in a piece next to it and find out the piece is in the wrong place.

The problem isn’t in the science, it’s in the false claim that science dictated the location of the piece.

the theory of evolution (science) isn’t a historical science — it can’t scientifically determine what animals lived when in the past, or even scientifically predict what will come next.

And yet evolutionists will take the perfectly valid science of evolution, and misuse it, just like climate alarmists take perfectly good meteorological science, and misuse it to try to predict a global warming future.

We conservatives easily understand the flaw in the 2nd, but too many assume we have to acecpt the first as being flawless.

Although once in a while, somebody like Charles Johnson of LGF comes along, to show us that once we jump on the evolutionary history bandwagon, we could just as easily jump on the global warming bandwagon, and then we could denounce those who don’t believe global warming as anti-scientific, just like evolutionists like to do for those who don’t believe their mythology.

I can deal with science that is repeatable, predictable, observational. the evolutionary historical model is just not that. What is the next “evolutionary step” for man? What will we look like in 100 years? 1000 years? Evolution has no answer. But whatever happens, it will be “proof” of evolution. Just like whatever happens with the weather, it’s “proof” of man-made climate change.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.